The AMA’s double standard on standards
The Australian Medical Association is a very curious beastie. It is like a three-year-old child. It only hears what it…
Far East diary
Ever willing to challenge nanny staters, just before Christmas I travelled to Bangkok to advise regional consumer organisations on coordinating…
Puffed-up public health poohbahs pan our happy heroes
So the public health poohbahs are off and running in 2018. The prurient puritans, the humourless harridans, the admonishing androids…
Bennelong win doesn’t cure dying Liberal culture
While voters went to the polls in the Bennelong by-election, in Melbourne I attended the memorial service of a local…
Milo Yiannopoulos insults conservatives along with everyone else
Watching Fairfax’s and the ABC’s outraged and breathless coverage of the violent Left protesters outside the Melbourne venue for the…
Survival or expediency?
The federal parliamentary party is divided, disordered, dystopian. The Prime Minister’s leadership lacks clear purpose and vision. Budget repair isn’t…
Simon Chapman defends disruptive new technology
In Wednesday’s Australian Financial Review, public health academic and media commentator Simon Chapman came out in strong support of a…
Pestminister diary
A fortnight ago I arrived in Britain, to speak at the annual Battle of Ideas festival. Think Festival of Dangerous…
Time for the Terminator
Returning this morning after three weeks in the Old Dart and the USA, I was greeted by yet another lousy…
Winston Oakeshott
Today, the last effective centre-right government of the Anglosphere has fallen. The New Zealand National government led by Bill English…
Yes/No notes
At least it shows we don’t need compulsory voting Australians are having their two bob’s worth on same-sex marriage.The first…
Bill English shows Malcolm Turnbull how to win
As counting closed on New Zealand’s election night, the main focus of Kiwi commentators was on the performance of Labour…
Sorry ladies, but there’s only one Ashes
Popping up in my Facebook feed are the latest Cricket Australia ads promoting something called the ‘Magellan Men’s Ashes’. It…
Turnbull should watch New Zealand and tremble
It may not mean a lot to people on this side of the Tasman (besides Barnaby Joyce and Scott Ludlum),…
I’m a baby boomer, and I like a drink. So there
Oh dear, nanny state researchers are out and about again, finding fresh angles to demonise those of us who enjoy…
Section 44 solved in six easy steps
Malcolm Turnbull has a heck of a political problem on his hands. For once, it’s not entirely of his own…
It ain’t choice, Joyce
In 1995, I was there when, one question time, John Howard’s reinvigorated opposition so niggled prime minister Paul Keating that…
The Dean Smith Five
Watching Liberal senator Dean Smith on the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday morning, I was impressed by the quiet and dignified…
Tax addict
At Australian Labor party conferences in New South Wales and Queensland last weekend, Bill Shorten proclaimed himself the Robin Hood…
Vaping, Big Public Health and the new McCarthyism
One of the more emotive arguments thrown up against e-cigarettes and vaping is that multinational tobacco companies, including Philip Morris…
Turnbull’s just Dizzy
Well, Malcolm Turnbull did it on Monday in London. He took Tony Abbott’s bait and weighed into the moderate v…
Is Turnbull planning a lightning strike against Abbott?
The Tony Abbott insurrection against the moderate overlords of the parliamentary Liberal party continues. ‘I am a member of the…
Abbott’s right about being more right
I wrote recently that the sensible centre in Australian politics is dead. Labor is off with the populist pixies and…
The curse of the Black Hand
How appropriate Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne was speaking to a Liberal left faction group called the Black Hand when…
Warsaw Diary
When one first lands in Warsaw, it’s easy to dismiss the prevailing Soviet realist architecture. The endless blocks of flats…
